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Thursday, September 22, 2016

[Short Story] An Unsafe Bet - Chapter 1

"There is no bravery in this." - Gagan a.k.a Maacha said. "If that is the case, why did Ashutosh back out from the challenge", countered Ravi.

"But what I don't understand is what are you going to do there after reaching there?", Maacha was not willing to back down here.

"We will piss in principal's office" - Ravi retorted.

Gopal was now pitching in too — "There is no difference between going to college during the day and night except for the darkness."

"And except for the rumor of the haunted tree, the nocturnes and the other unknowns that might be waiting out there" came out my meek voice.

"But maacha, the whole college will know us as the guys who walked through the fields to college after midnight". Pat came Ravi's response.

"Also, we will tell your children about your bravery too" Gopal was a solid salesman from the beginning.

"You guys can go then" - I responded.

"This will become the night to remember for us and you will miss the boat", asked Gopal.

"That's bulls**t"

Gopal was also scared here. We were all scared. All four of us, stood there in the desolated bus-stop with one tube-light hanging over us. The sound of the trucks whizzing by was the only sound we could hear as all of us stood there reasoning within us.

Finally, Ravi spoke out — "I am in. Who all are in this?"

“Am in too”, Gopal replied.

Maacha said-"You guys go, I am out of this." And then all eyes turned towards me.

I still do not recall what happened to me but yes went out of my mouth even before my mind could think.

Maacha agreed to wait for us here at this desolated bus-stop arguing that this is the farthest he can go and he can't go back alone as there was another dark stretch to the hostel which in our first year of college, he has never made it through alone. Later, we came to know that he slept off under the bright tube-light on desolated bus stop.

So we three of us started towards college to our paths of glory. We moved towards the dusty road leading to the tobacco fields. The darkness jumped on us and we froze for the moment.